In school there are times when reading is required, but what few people know is that just reading for the heck of it can actually be fun too! And nobody knows this better than our librarian Mrs. Ploehs, who has started up another year of the popular teen read contest, a chance to expand your mind and score some good food.

For those of you who sleep through announcements every morning, the Teen Read contest is a yearly contest where you go to the library, read some books for fun, and enter your name in a big drawing for monthly prizes! These include gift cards to Chipotle, Subway, McDonald’s, and Price Hill Chili, among others.

During National Library Week in April, three grand prize drawings are picked for a whopping hundred dollars’ worth of gift cards, an awesome result of just for reading for fun!

To get entries in for the contest, all you have to do is visit Elder’s library, check out a book that looks good to you, read it, then fill out a form when you bring it back, and listen to hear your name called as a monthly winner. You don’t even need to check out a book from Elder’s library; just visit the public library or buy one from Barnes and Noble or Amazon.

As good as that sounds, what’s even better is that you can score two entries just by attending one of the library’s book club events, as opposed to only one when you read a book. The next book club meeting is right after school on Monday, December 8.

For more details on the contest just go to the elderhs.net homepage, sign in, and under “Library Links” you’ll find a tab entitled “LIBRARY CONTEST” which will give you all the information you need about the contest.

Mrs. Ploehs says that the contest is great because it encourages people to read for fun and expand from just school-required reads.

“The prizes are nice and everything, but the real prize is what you get out of reading just because you want to,” said Mrs. Ploehs. “It’s a great thing when people realize that reading is more than just something required for a class.”

Senior Noah Peterson, a frequent partaker of the contest, does it because entry is so easy and the prizes are worth it.

“It’s really easy to enter, you can just fill out a form when you return a book.,” said Peterson. “Each book you read gives you a chance to win a variety of gift cards. Just recently, I ate at Chipotle using the gift card I won from the contest last year.”

Senior Alex Harrison, president of the Elder glee club, uses the contest as a chance to fit some reading time in his busy schedule.
“It really gets me to read, since I don’t have as much time as I used. There’s more of an incentive with the prizes they give away,” said Harrison.  “Mrs. Ploehs takes a lot of pride in getting people to participate, so I do it for her, too. I won a $10 McDonald’s gift card when I did it last year.”

Frosh Kaleb Dettmer, possibly the biggest reader in this year’s freshman class, said his love of reading is what motivates him to take part in the contest.

“I really love reading so I feel it is great that you may get a prizes for your hard work you did,” said Dettmer.  “So if you don’t read a lot and you want to more then this will help get you a motivation to read.”

Any of you who want to catch up your personal reading, or just have an interest in starting a new hobby, or even if you just like Chipotle, because hey, who doesn’t? The Teen Read Contest is definitely worth trying and you just might learn something from it.

And you know what they say, having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card!